Te Araroa Day 0, Getting to Kaitaia

Te Araroa begins at Cape Reinga, way up in the far north of the country, a long way from home in Wellington.

My partner Sarah was joining me for the first portion of the walk, and following a weekend at one of our favourite Wellington beer festivals, the plan was to fly up to Kaitaia, the northernmost airport and sizeable town in the country.

The first flight, Auckland-Wellingon went off without a hitch.

Sarah and I Enjoying our traditional Auckland airport beer while waiting for our flight to Kaitaia

The second one, however had some troubles.  Our plane was late arriving from Kaitaia.  We finally got aboard and after the quick flight (about 45 mins), attempted to land.  And failed due to low cloud over the airport.  And tried again.  And failed again.  And tried again.  And failed again.  At this point we had to turn around and fly back to Auckland.  When we got there, some 3 hours after departure, we were given the option of taking the same flight the next day or going up the following morning at 04:45.
We opted for the latter, with a few hours sleep in the Auckland airport hotel beforehand.

The next morning was bright and clear, and we made it to Kaitaia with no trouble.  True, the airport shuttle wasn't there to meet us as planned, but one of our fellow passengers kindly offered us a ride into town (and even bought us a coffee as we waited for the supermarket to open so we could buy our walking supplies!)

Sarah looking radiant aboard our early morning flight to Kaitaia.

We did our shopping, made a quick stop in town to visit Brian, the Airbnb host who we'd planned to stay with the previous night and who we would be staying with when we'd walked back down the peninsula in a few days time.

After this it was northward ho.